Faces of immigration: Man can’t compete with illegal workers

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Scott Powelson, 59, of Costa Mesa has been in the flooring business since the late 70's and used to make a comfortable living doing so. However, the industry began to change for him in the mid-90s after, he said, he could no longer compete with the low bids offered by contractors who hired illegal workers. He's six months behind on his rent and is thinking of moving to Arizona.

Powelson said he can't afford to charge the same as his competition because expenses for flooring materials have gone up.

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Powelson said his competition charges as low as $100 for a days worth of work installing flooring. At one point he used to charge up to $500 a day.

Powelson said he refuses to take jobs to fix the botched work his competitors leave behind.

Powelson said he regrets not becoming more politically active earlier in life. Most of his time now is taken up by his activist work aimed at stopping illegal immigration.

Negotiating his work fee in a small Huntington Beach home in the 1980s, Scott Powelson suspected he would one day be replaced by workers from south of the border.

“Well you know, I can get this guy to do this for way cheaper,” the homeowner told him at the time.

The woman told Powelson his competition spoke Spanish but very little English. While she couldn’t quite comprehend everything the other man said, she understood the price.

Powelson, who had just given the homeowner his best bid to install ceramic tile, passed on the job. He would have had to take a 20 percent cut to match the price.

“I couldn’t compete,” the 59-year-old from Costa Mesa recalled on a recent weekday at a local diner where the food is cheap and plentiful.

“I realized flat out that I couldn’t compete with these guys in ceramic tile, eventually they’d move into my field of expertise,” he said. “I saw it coming way back. … I started realizing that I’m bidding against these guys who come in from Mexico … illegally.”

Powelson, who has labored in the hardwood flooring business for 30 years, said he is now feeling the full force of what he predicted decades ago.

Magnified by a crippling recession that’s left home improvements as a second thought, he’s resorted to taking odd jobs here and there. He’s essentially unemployed, more than six months behind on rent and seriously considering a move out of state. Most of his time now is dedicated to political activism aimed at curbing illegal immigration.

While his situation is dire, he said, he doesn’t blame the illegal workers who can afford to lower their fees, outbidding him on jobs. He doesn’t point his finger at the contractor or subcontractors who hire them.

The root of his situation, he said, is the American people’s addiction to cheap labor and products.

Powelson, a high school graduate, took some community college courses but didn’t quite know what to do for most of his young adult life. He happened on installing flooring and enjoyed how the work could take him from cottages to mansions — meeting interesting people along the way.

He started making $150 a day and eventually earned up to $500 for a day’s worth of work. He never married and lived pretty comfortably, working steadily in the 1970s and 1980s, he said.

The industry began to change in the mid-90s, Powelson said. That’s when a lot of the contractors stopped doing the work themselves, he said. Instead, they hired workers, dropping them off at work sites with tools before taking off.

“They would blast through jobs so quickly, taking up the work,” he said. “But as long as the economy was up, it really didn’t hurt me. I would still get my share.”

He’d get at least three jobs a week back then.

Soon, however, the economy soured and the work slowed.

When the economy tanked a couple years ago, Powelson said, it became economically impossible for him to compete against the six or seven other bids coming from contractors who hired foreign workers.

The bids would come down to $100 a day – lower than what he started out making decades ago. He was lucky to get a job a week. The last straw came when a shop owner Powelson knew well told him he may have work for him – fixing a botched flooring job one of Powelson’s competitors did.

“I wouldn’t do it,” he said, saying that job added insult to injury.

Powelson said he’s confronted contractors and shop owners he has relationships with and who now rely solely on people who are working in the country illegally.

“Hey, I have to,” he said, repeating what the contractors told him. “If I want to keep making the money I’m making, I have to keep hiring these guys. Everyone else is doing it. It’s the only way I can compete.”

Powelson says the employers “are ruining the country.” Still, he said he understands their position.

“They’ve gotten themselves into debt up to their eyeballs. The simple fact is that they can’t live on what they can earn themselves,” he said. “They need someone working for them making less than what they can charge for. He needs to be able to make enough to make that to cover his bills… They got hooked on using people at a lower rate.”

Powelson said he realizes he was in a compromised position.

“Anyone can learn to do a floor. It’s not rocket science,” he said.

He said he tried to learn a new profession and became a heavy equipment operator for some time but the local union’s way of doing things didn’t agree with him. He eventually got out.

Powelson said switching professions now that he’s older is difficult and something he’s not willing to do, He said he’s never been an ambitious man.

“I don’t do a lot… much more than I have to do,” he explained.

His only regret is not becoming politically active until later in life.